Shooting "Point Blank" - High Resolution Gun Photography

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to stare down the barrel of a gun? Well Toronto-based photographer Peter Andrew teamed up with art directors Simon Duffy and Derek Blais to show us. The series, “Point Blank”, features iconic handguns in high-resolution "portraits", some of which are printed as large as 4×8 feet. In order to achieve the incredible detailing in these shots Peter used one light, a Nikon D800E and a 100mm macro lens to shoot as many as 20 frames per portrait. Focusing on each part individually and then combining them in post production allowed for a high depth-of-field but with 36+ megapixels, Peter was working with files as large as a gigabyte. With only five prints of each gun being made they range in price from $3,600 for 5 feet long and $5,000 for 8 feet long.

-Peter's work featured in Bruce McDonald's new movie "The Husband".

Glock

“Guns have a massive amount of power associated with them. They are designed to kill. We decided to photograph portraits of them in a similar way you might photograph a powerful person. Like powerful people, pistols have this “perfect” quality that we wanted to explore.”

Desert Eagle

“As we started shooting them, we could see flaws in their design. Metal burring around the barrels, scratches in the metal. This imperfection and detail were very interesting to us; connecting us back to these images as portraits.”

Uzi

“We also loved the impossible perspective these portraits provided. Typically, when you see a gun at this range and perspective it’s usually seconds before the pistol is fired. This makes it very hard to examine at point blank range. As the viewer, you want to lean in and see the detail; but at the same time it’s very uneasy to be as close as you are to the barrel of a gun.”

Smith & Wesson

“We’ve thought a lot about the politics and here’s how I put it. I think that guns are safe if they are used by safe people and dangerous if use by dangerous people.”

Beretta

“I’m not saying guns are good or bad in this project. What I am saying is that guns can be interesting to look at from a technical and visual perspective.”

Smith & Wesson

It's always good to ask an artist for permission before posting their works but even more so when they have access to this many firearms. So I contacted Peter for permission and a few quick questions, in hopes of getting to know him a little better.

1) How did you get started in photography / what was your first paid gig?

“I started by assisting. My first real gig was a food shoot for Molson-Coors.”

2) If a unicorn were to magically remove cameras from your hands, forever, what would you want to replace them with (the cameras not your hands)?

3) If you were trapped in a pit full of ravenous chinchillas what would you want your last meal to be?

“Sushi.”

4) Do you have any amazingly must see projects in the works?

“As always I'm working on my highway series. Also, I'm working on a project on the Air Jordan chronology.”

Peter and his crew have more models in the works and have aspirations for a book of the series. So if you want to be kept up to date on this or any of Peter's other projects be sure to like him on Peter Andrew's Facebook page or follow him on Twitter @lusztyk.

39 Comments

I would say that this has almost nothing to do with the gun itself, but the literal objectification of the subject. This kind of macro photography works incredibly well with everything from flatware, to hardware, to garbage.

I couldn't answer for the artist, but guns have a lot of emotional/political baggage with them. By objectifying them (enlarge them so much, put them out of context on a white background), it distances the emotional response and requires the viewer to look at the object as an object in detail.

Admittedly, what I should have said was that this has almost nothing to do with the love of guns.

i use to be of the opinion that guns were something evil by themselves and was "afraid" to own one or be around one. But after a close encounter with an ex-convict at my home, i braved up and purchased one. It took me a while to feel comfortable having it, but soon realized it was just a tool that can be handled safely and securely.... and it brought me peace of mind that if an encounter would happen again, i had at least a half a chance of protecting me and my wife. I've had many guns since, i live in the country now where it takes the Sheriff department 45-60 minutes to reach my house when called, and have done that on a couple occasions..... if guns are not effective at stopping a would be assailant, then why do our law enforcement carry them. They are no different than you or i........ if the guards at the navy installation had been armed, then they would have had to opportunity to stop the slaughter.... you cannot legislate guns out of existence or keep them from coming over our borders by or for people of ill will..... its a right we have as citizens, and if you've never felt the comfort of knowing you have a weapon in your possession that will give you the power to maybe not only save yourself, but the lives of your wife and family.....then you are missing out on something very special....

most used weapon for murder may be the hammer, but it's damn hard to kill off dozens of people with a hammer in a few seconds. an AR15 with a beta mag makes short work of that. the reason that people call for tighter gun restrictions is not to eliminate death by firearms, it's to eliminate mass shootings. one person killing another will never be avoidable, it's the one person killing many that is.

The idea behind it being that you can purchase an AR15, mini 14, shotgun, etc, at walmart. you can't buy C4 at walmart. people still get their hands on weapons such as M249s because if you're really want it, you can get whatever you want. what sensible gun control advocates are trying to avoid is the everyday person being able to buy off the shelf weapons with little to no effort that have little purpose other than massive damage (ie, you're not going to hunt deer using a semi-auto rifle with a 60+ round magazine)

You mean to say that the disgruntled youth that go about mass murdering their school mates would easily be able to get their hands on guns if the rights to arms yourself and the mass retail availability was not there?Coming from a country where a gun owner is required to undergo a fairly rigorous licensing process in order to be allowed to obtain a gun, I beg to differ with your comment. What you will find is that because of the lack of availability, that only those that are really well connected would ever have the means to get one. Yes they could if they choose go to the hardware and pick up a hammer but the fact of the mater is that not only is it harder to kill one person let alone multiple people with a close quarter weapon, it is also a hell of a lot more personal striking someone down in close proximity than it is to stand meters away and pull a trigger, therefore it is less likely that the perp's would do it.

The problem is that once you place any sort of arbitrary restrictions on the specifics of a firearm, it becomes extremely easy for radical activist judges to take away the rest of our rights piece by piece, citing judicial precedent as justification.

Anti-gun fear-mongers like Bloomberg and Feinstein can't seem to wrap their very small minds around the fact that there's no correlation between reducing the freedoms of the general population and the behavior of a literal crazy person.

It sounds counter-intuitive to the uneducated or ignorant mind, but the best answer is actually to make it easier for mentally stable, law-abiding citizens to purchase and carry firearms in the daily lives. In every mass shooting we've seen in the last 5 years, the perp was aided by the fact that there was a shortage of people who could apply appropriate counter-force.

I really like this perspective of the guns themselves. Anyone who knows about guns and gun safety, know not to point them at yourself or others. It is cool looking down the business end without feeling slightly nervous.

The point of these pieces might have actually been to make the viewer slightly nervous. Because they are pointed directly at the viewer, the muzzle will seem to follow you around the room, always pointing at you.

Alcohol kills many people with accidents, liver decease, related cancers and ruins the lives of individuals and the families of those who abuse and we are quicker to applaud the artistry of a glass of beer than point out the controversies. Why should we treat photos of cold steel different unless we hold double standards?